January 16, 2013

Armed teachers and bulletproof backpacks

You’re heading out the door to take your kids to school and
you do a last minute double check: Lunch?
Homework? Bulletproof backpack?

That’s right: now you can send your child to school with a
bulletproof backpack to protect her “in case of the unthinkable,” as the
website for Amendment II, the
company that sells the backpack, so delicately puts it. You can purchase these
satchels-turned-shields with the Avengers, Disney Princesses, and other designs.

After the Newtown tragedy, sales of the backpacks skyrocketed. Amendment II’s president
told Mother Jones magazine: "I can't go into
exact sales numbers, but basically we tripled our sales volume of backpacks
that we typically do in a month — in one week.”

A “good guy with a
gun” in every school?

Call me crazy, but the idea of sending my child off to school
sporting a bulletproof backpack doesn’t increase my sense of security — quite
the opposite.

As Rebecca Peters, former director of the International
Action Network on Small Arms, told the New York Times, “A
society that is relying on guys with guns to stop violence is a sign of a
society where institutions have broken down.”

Comments

You’re heading out the door to take your kids to school and
you do a last minute double check: Lunch?
Homework? Bulletproof backpack?

That’s right: now you can send your child to school with a
bulletproof backpack to protect her “in case of the unthinkable,” as the
website for Amendment II, the
company that sells the backpack, so delicately puts it. You can purchase these
satchels-turned-shields with the Avengers, Disney Princesses, and other designs.

After the Newtown tragedy, sales of the backpacks skyrocketed. Amendment II’s president
told Mother Jones magazine: "I can't go into
exact sales numbers, but basically we tripled our sales volume of backpacks
that we typically do in a month — in one week.”

A “good guy with a
gun” in every school?

Call me crazy, but the idea of sending my child off to school
sporting a bulletproof backpack doesn’t increase my sense of security — quite
the opposite.

As Rebecca Peters, former director of the International
Action Network on Small Arms, told the New York Times, “A
society that is relying on guys with guns to stop violence is a sign of a
society where institutions have broken down.”